BRUSSELS – The European Union, Ukraine and Russia agreed during a three-way meeting in Brussels on Sept. 12-13 to continue talks on the future transiting of Russian gas through Ukraine, an EU spokesperson said on Sept.14.
Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, spokesperson for vice president of the European Commission Maros Sefcovic, confirmed to the Kyiv Post that the meeting had taken place.
Specifically, the sides agreed to continue discussions on the form of a new contract for the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to EU countries after 2019, when the current contract expires, Itkonen said.
“The meeting provided better understanding of the initial positions and expectations of the parties on key parameters of the possible future transit framework, namely: the legal environment, future Transmission System Operator in Ukraine, and the approach to the tariff methodology,” she said.
“The parties agreed to meet again at the same level towards the end of September.”
According to the Kyiv Post’s sources, the negotiations were held in a constructive atmosphere.
“The Russians are used to working with European companies, so they have an understanding of what the EU’s rules are about,” a source close to the talks told the Kyiv Post on condition of anonymity. “So there are no surprises in the Ukrainian position, which is in line with the EU’s standards.”
The Ukrainian mission to the EU said in a statement after the talks that any future contract on the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine would be based on EU law.
“The Ukrainian side confirmed their interest in having the EU internal market treatment extended to Ukraine, and reported about the current work going on to fully implement the gas market norms and rules of the European Union,” the mission said in the statement.
“In this regard, the participants of the talks confirmed that the contractual relations between the operators on the Ukrainian energy market will be governed by Ukrainian legislation that is fully compliant with that of the EU.”
The next round of negotiations is scheduled to take place on Sept. 26.
This meeting was a follow-up of the Ministerial Trilateral Talks chaired by Sefcovic in Berlin on 17 July. Those talks were held between Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, the CEO of Russia’s Gazprom state company, Alexey Miller, and the CEO of Ukrainian state oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy Andriy Kobolev.
After the talks in Berlin, Sevcovic said that the sides had identified four key issues for experts to discuss, including “the EU’s gas needs for the next decade; ways in which EU law applied in Ukraine would impact the future transit contract; a certified transmission system operator in Ukraine; and how the EU legislation would be transposed into the tariff-setting mechanism for the transiting of gas from Russia through Ukraine to the EU.”
“We need a new type of contract, a future-oriented contract which will be fully compatible with European legislation,” Sevcovic said.
